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Herod's Morbid Curiosity

  • POPE FRANCIS

In our world, ordained ministers and other pastoral workers can make present the fragrance of Christ's closeness and his personal gaze.


Francis4mIn a culture paradoxically suffering from anonymity and at the same time obsessed with the details of other people's lives, shamelessly given over to morbid curiosity, the Church must look more closely and sympathetically at others whenever necessary. In our world, ordained ministers and other pastoral workers can make present the fragrance of Christ's closeness and his personal gaze.  The Church will have to initiate everyone — priests, religious, and laity — into this "art of accompaniment" which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5).  The pace of this accompaniment must be steady and reassuring, reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze which also heals, !berates, and encourages growth in the Christian life.

Although it sounds obvious, spiritual accompaniment must lead others ever closer to God, in whom we attain true freedom.  Some people think they are free if they can avoid God; they fail to see that they remain existentially orphaned, helpless, homeless.  They cease being pilgrims and become drifters, flitting around themselves and never getting anywhere.  To accompany them would be counterproductive if it became a sort of therapy supporting their self-absorption and ceased to be a pilgrimage with Christ to the Father. 

Today more than ever we need men and women who, on the basis of their experience of accompanying others, are familiar with processes which call for prudence, understanding, patience, and docility to the Spirit, so that they can protect the sheep from wolves who would scatter the flock.

This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.

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Acknowledgement

francis Pope Francis. "Herod's Morbid Curiosity." Evangelii Gaudium #169-171 (2013).

This excerpt appeared in the September, 2015 issue of Magnificat.

Reprinted with permission of Libreria Editrice Vaticana.  

The Author

francis51smfrancis7smPope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and a cardinal in 2011. He was elected Pope on March 13, 2013. He is the first pope to be a Jesuit, to come from the Americas, and to come from the Southern Hemisphere. He is the author of Laudato Si, Encountering Truth: Meeting God in the Everyday, The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium, The Church of Mercy, Walking with Jesus: A Way Forward for the Church, and Through the Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections.

Copyright © 2013 Libreria Editrice Vaticana